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<title>Snoop</title>
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<p class="style1"><span class="newStyle1">Snoop (a WPF utility)</span></p>
<center><a href="Snoop.zip">Download</a></center>
<p class="newStyle1">What</p>
<p class="style2">A random utility made to simplify visual debugging of WPF 
applications at runtime. It&#39;s basically a collection of things that may have 
seemed useful at one time or another with the common goal of making it easier to 
track down bugs in WPF applications.</p>
<p class="style2">This is not an official tool, just a utility that was found 
useful and added to when functionality was needed. It&#39;s provided in the hopes of 
helping others.</p>
<p class="style5"><span class="newStyle1">Usage</span></p>
<p class="style3">Run Snoop.exe. Once it has started it will display a list of 
all running WPF applications. If your target app is not running yet, just launch 
it then refresh the list with the Refresh button or by pressing F5.</p>
<p class="style2"><img src="pics/Launcher.PNG" width="270" height="170" /></p>
<p class="newStyle1">Building</p>
<p class="style2">Snoop.csproj can be built using VS Express, but the complete 
solution requires the C++ compiler found in full VS. The C++ portion of the 
solution is provided pre-built and has no WPF dependencies, so you should not 
have to rebuild it to run.</p>
<p class="newStyle1"><span class="newStyle1">Primary View</span></p>
<p class="style3">Graph of the visual tree on the left, list of properties on 
the selected element in the center, common events &amp; preview area on the right</p>
<p class="style2"><img src="pics/PrimaryView.PNG" width="700" height="580" /></p>
<p class="style2">The selected element will highlight with a red adorner in the 
target application. Another way of finding elements in the tree is to hold down 
Ctrl-Shift and mouse over the target application. This will move the selection 
to the element under the mouse.</p>
<p class="style2"><img src="pics/Adorner.PNG" width="506" height="98" /></p>
<p class="newStyle1">Tree View</p>
<p><img src="pics/TreeViewD.PNG" width="390" height="182" class="style2" /></p>
<p class="style4">Navigate the visual tree using this view, F5 will refresh the 
list of elements. The text on the left is the element name, in brackets is it&#39;s 
type, and on the right is the number of child elements it contains. Number of 
child elements is quite useful when focusing on performance and trying to keep 
the element count to a minimum.</p>
<p class="style4">If you&#39;re tired of searching through debug spew for binding 
errors, they can be searched for using the drop down beside the filter box.</p>
<p class="newStyle1">Property Grid</p>
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<img src="pics/PropertyViewD.PNG" width="489" height="276" class="style2" /></p>
<p class="style4">Lists all the properties on the currently selected element. 
Writable properties may be edited in the value area. Also displays where the 
property was picked up from.</p>
<p class="style4">Right click will show options to Delve (inspect the value). If 
the property is a binding then the binding and expression can also be inspected. 
Useful for debugging those binding errors.</p>
<p><span class="newStyle1">RoutedEvents View</span></p>
<p><img src="pics/EventsViewD.PNG" width="579" height="317" class="style2" /></p>
<p><span class="newStyle1">Preview Area</span> (off by default, for perf)</p>
<p class="style2"><img src="pics/PreviewD.PNG" width="437" height="232" /></p>
<p class="newStyle1">Zoom View <span class="style6">(accessed from zoom button in 
Preview Area)</span></p>
<p class="newStyle1">
<img src="pics/Zoomer.PNG" width="606" height="520" class="style2" /></p>
<p class="style2">Use mouse wheel to zoom, double-click to reset zoom.&nbsp; 
Slider at the top changes the brightness of the background color. +/- keys may 
also be used to zoom the view.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial">Special 
thanks to AdrianMa for AvalonSpy which provided the inspiration and is a great 
tool of it’s own, and KennyY for Sparkle’s ‘Live Tree Statistics’ feature, the 
granddaddy of them all.</span></p>

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